The Arizona sentinel., 1887-01-22
SWISS HOME LIFE.
Beautiful Children Who Are Lin
 guists and Merchants.
Their Rude Valley SchoOls-Industrious and Cheerful Lace Makers = The Long, "Gay" Winters-Farm-
 ing on the Sides of
 Mountains.

Mountains.
 Every Swiss child, no matter what his or her position or condition in life, knows how to read and wIite-if he is capable of learning how. I have been surprised to see how rapidly many of of the guides and donkey boys can read any handwriting, or how quickly they will spell or write the name of any place or mountain inquired about I have been frequently assured by our drivers and guides that all children mu st go to school three months in year. The law they said was Sehr, Sehr strong (very strict) about that; none could be eX- eused. have been told, too, that now every Swiss child was required to learn German, whether it was the language of the canton in which he lived or not, and nearly all whom I have met could speak either French or German, or would answer in the language in which l addressed them, unless, quickly per ceiving by my accent that I was English or American, they would answer a question put to them in French or Ger man in English.
 In one of the deepest of these valleys, into which the sun can only send its rays very few hours in the longest days of summer, and in winter scarcely at all, I went into the little school house of the valley. It was a chilly, cheerless place, but there was black board, and maps were on the wall. The narrow straight-backed seats, of the cheapest construction, seemed such a contrast to those pleasant, com fortable desks and seats with which nearly all our little country school houses are now furnished; such a con- trast to our bright school-rooms fur nished, often, with globes and pict- ures, many of them with flowers, that could not but with little vanity con- graduate myself with having at home, in our country, the best schools in the world. Only that terrible scarifyer of statistics which I found in a French magazine, comparing our own reports as to the numbers who could not read and write in some of our so-called most enlightened States that boast of won derful school system, with like reports of various countries in Europe, quite took boastful spirit out of me. School houses are not schools, and the latter must be estimated according to what they do for the people who are taught in them.
 Every little toddhng in Switzerland must also earn its living as soon as it can lisp its own name, either in some work on in taking care of one younger than. itself. All along the roadside through the valleys are little board shelters'where, on shelves thus protect ed, wood d-carvings and Swiss lace are offered for sale, or little bright-eyed, slender-hmbed chamois. tended by some child, is to be seen for a few cent ines to be added to the store, which is to keep these people from starvation during the long winter, for which they must look out with care.
 Under one of these sheds to-day I saw two little girls, who had it in charge, and stopped to speak with them. Both were making lace, their little fingers flying so that I could hardly see them, as they handled the bobbins, any more than the spokes of a wheel in full motion, and the smallest of.these children was no larger than are most children at five years old in our country, though she told me she was eight. When l patted the little head and expressed surprise that such lit tie thing should be able to make lace so nicely, the older sister told me with loving pride, that Anna had earned her own living by Iaee-working already for two years. They begged me to buy the piece saw her making. flor there are five of us, they said;' 1.-two younger than we are, and we are Setr Grme, tres pa1tU1e, very poor" they said, trying, in three languages, to make me com prehend the situation and induce me to buy. Both could read and write, they tod me.
 And where is your mother?" l asked. She was in the field, and their father was a ''trager,' i. C., one who stays about the hotels and gets any job that comes to hand of carrying people, afraid or unable to go up the mountain on horseback or on mules, up in a chair set upon litter, borne by two such men for exactly the same price as ispaid for a horse and the one Rlan who leads him up with the man or woman on his back. Or ''trager' carries up their trunks upon his shoul- ders while they thus ride up, borne by